Desert Wandering
She thought she was falling
apart into landscape
unfamiliar and strange.
Not what she wanted but
some breaking open with no
way to breathe in
open air, open sky.
How, how to navigate
through desert, where
wandering in any
direction makes little
difference to change.
Come, rain!
Come, storm!
She drifts, drifts in
a place both too large
and too loud
and too bleak and
too small and fails
fails to recognize
her own voice.
Do you know it?
Do you hear it?
she asks.
In the desert place
where turning
turning
becomes habitual,
consequential, instinctual.
Sand in her heart and
her eyes.
—jennifer j. camp
